OVER the years the mobile phone Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card has evolved just like the mobile phone.
The early digital phones contained a full-sized SIM card, which is the same size as a credit card.
This SIM had limited space for phone number storage and consumed more battery power.
The mini-SIM was later introduced which is the more common sized SIM card today and is supported by most types of mobile phones.
When the iPhone 4 was launched, the micro-SIM attained popularity and this was an even smaller SIM card.
This was the first time in many years since we had a change in SIM card size.
Adapters that allowed a micro-SIM to be placed into a mini-SIM phone became available making it easy to swap between different types of phones.
With the recent release of the iPhone 5, we have now seen an even smaller SIM card released that is known as a nano-SIM card.
The nano-SIM is hardly any bigger than the metal contacts leaving a very small amount of plastic to prevent short circuits.
SIM cards with Near Field Communication (NFC) chips embedded on them are soon to be the next thing.
These NFC SIM cards will allow users with a standard phone to be able to utilise NFC technology including payments from their mobile phone.
* James Trusler is a director of Foneology. Email fijitechchat@gmail.com.